“The humanitarian situation in the area is very difficult, and it is crucial that we resume our work,” says NRC Country Director Ulrika Blom Mondlane.

NRC runs four camps, in addition to education projects, distribution of non food items, protection monitoring and information, counseling and legal assistance in the war torn province of North Kivu. Last Thursday, NRC had to withdraw from North Kivu and suspend its emergency aid operations due to lack of security for its staff. However, the Country Director travelled from Rwanda back to Eastern Congo and Goma in order to monitor the situation. Now, Blom Mondlane and other NRC staff are back in Goma and working around the clock in order to resume NRC’s emergency relief work.

“Most of the emergency aid organisations that left Goma have now returned. The situation in the city seems calm and we feel safe,” Blom Mondlane says.

The UN and NGOs that work in Eastern Congo estimate that as many as 250 000 people have been displaced since fighting broke out again at the end of August. Additional hundreds of thousands of people may have been displaced since the fighting intensified one week ago. Lack of access to the areas where people are displaced and difficulties in getting an overview of the situation, makes it impossible to confirm an exact number of newly displaced.

Before the new fights broke out, there were already more than one million internally displaced in North Kivu. Many of them have once again been forced to flee the camps where they sought refuge.

NRC has been present in DR Congo since 2001. The organisation works in North Kivu, South Kivu and Katanga, and runs a country office in Goma in North Kivu.

Press enquiries:
Please contact press adviser Truls Brekke at ph: +47 95 10 78 78, truls.brekke@nrc.no